Views and Opinions – Pakistan Gender Newshttps://www.pakistangendernews.org
Gender News From PakistanThu, 23 May 2019 08:54:04 +0000en-US
hourly
1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.1The place of womenhttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-place-of-women/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-place-of-women/#respondTue, 21 May 2019 08:51:18 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87903The proportion of women entrepreneurs in Pakistan is dismally poor, barely a percentage of the country’s entrepreneurial community. Unless more women embrace business ventures, their economic participation and emancipation would remain meagre and a challenge for national development.

One of the major reasons for women to remain behind entrepreneurially is lack of access to finances. The gender-wise distribution of gross loan portfolio of the State Bank of Pakistan shows that only three per cent of small-medium business loans go to women as compared to ninety seven per cent given to men. Similarly, only thirteen per cent of the microfinance loan is provided to women while eighty seven per cent of the loan goes to men. An aspiring female entrepreneur in Pakistan cannot open a bank account without mentioning her father and husband’s name in the presence of a witness. These impediments are not due to discrimination in banking regulations; in fact, according to a study conducted by the Asian Development Bank, this gap is the result of the banks’ preconceived notions that women clients lack creditworthiness, they are dependent on men and that obtaining information about their reliability is difficult. In addition to these structural barriers, women, both in the rural and urban centers, have been found unaware about the financial services available to them.

The employment rate for women in Pakistan is also not very encouraging, which is around 4.3 per cent. It is even lower in industries. The work environment discourages women to engage in economic activities because of the failure of the organizations and industries to provide for special arrangements, such as daycare centers for women having children, enforcement of Workplace Harassment Act, which has been duly passed by the federal and a few provincial governments. Women in the rural setting suffer even more at the hands of the profit seekers who take advantage of these women being illiterate, poor and unaware about their rights enshrined in these statutes.

Just as the environment throws challenges in the way of women restricting their abilities to enter into entrepreneurship, so are there challenges within women that put obstacles in their paths towards becoming economically independent. In their research on Entrepreneurial Perceptions and Intentions: The Role of Gender and Culture, Rachel S. Shinnar, Olivier Giacomin and Frank Janssen argue that there are three perception barriers to female entrepreneurship: lack of support, fear of failure and lack of competency.

These restrains notwithstanding, women in Pakistan like in many South Asian countries have been the victim of patriarchy entrenched in the social and cultural norms.

Two trends — male dependency and the unequal distribution of resources and opportunities between men and women — have always impeded women’s chances to become financially independent. Other auxiliary factors such as poverty, illiteracy and resistance from family have further compounded the issue. A woman’s sense of entitlement towards her life is never allowed to become strong on the assumption that her existence and honour depends on a man in her life. On the other hand, the government has been unable to provide for a cultural and social environment that supports women empowerment and gender parity. Though things have improved manifold over the years and today more women are participating in economic activities, financial independence is still a forbidden fruit for many women because they are not free to make choices about their lives.

According to a survey conducted by the International Monetary Fund in 2018, Pakistan’s Gross Domestic Product can rise up to thirty per cent with increased women empowerment and their enhanced role in the labour force. According to another analysis by global investment bank, Goldman Sachs, closing the employment gender gap in the BRIC countries (Brazil, the Russian Federation, India and China) and the “next-11” or N-11 countries (the Arab Republic of Egypt, Bangladesh, Indonesia, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Philippines, the Republic of Korea, Turkey and Vietnam) could push per capita income by fourteen per cent higher by 2020 and twenty per cent higher by 2030. As Goldman Sachs chief executive Lloyd Blankfein stated, “We are disciplined in our investment, and when you get to the topic of trying to invest and create GDP, there is no better or more efficient investment — no lower hanging fruit in the world to pick — than the investment you make in women.” Additionally, as compared to men, economically active women have been found to spend more resources on the education and health of their children.

In its latest report titled, Pakistan @100: Shaping the Future, the World Bank argues that Pakistan has only used forty per cent of its human resource potential which translates into poor economic growth. To reverse this situation, Annette Dixon, the World Bank’s President suggests Pakistan “to unlock women’s potential.”

In the early 1980s when researchers started studying the reasons for women’s failure as entrepreneurs, the analysis was based on comparing attributes, such as age, attitude and education, to explain why men had been naturally inclined to succeed as entrepreneurs. These studies were later rejected on the ground that an individual is a combination of both personal characteristics and environmental factors, and missing out on the latter had induced “individualistic fallacy.” More recent research has adopted the concept of an “entrepreneurial ecosystem,” which holds that both social and economic environment determine failure or success of the entrepreneurial activity. With this new pivot in perception, women’s entrepreneurship is being viewed as a factor of legal rights, access to education, national family-leave policies, cultural and religious norms. The world has moved from ‘what is wrong with the women,’ to ‘what is wrong with the system.’

Pakistan will also have to improve the system to achieve high women engagement in economic activities. The Bangladesh model of women empowerment can be emulated, albeit, adjusted for domestic challenges. Banks are bound by the government in Bangladesh to lend fifteen per cent of their funds to women entrepreneurs and report on their progress towards the target. The idea of tying the appraisal of institutions with the gender-sensitive indicators of success can prove to be a game changer. To accelerate entrepreneurship trend in women and to capture its full impact on women’s lives, the government will have to invest in policies and initiatives. Only through the provision of an enabling and holistic environment, in which women can translate their ideas into successful business ventures, could Pakistan unlock the sixty per cent hidden potential of its human capital.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-place-of-women/feed/0The marriage age debatehttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-marriage-age-debate/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-marriage-age-debate/#respondThu, 16 May 2019 05:41:52 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87882THE new debate over the minimum marriage age for girls has revealed a massive regression in our society’s social thinking and the implications are truly alarming.

Ninety years ago, a Hindu member of the Central Assembly of India moved a bill to fix the minimum age for the marriage of girls belonging to his community, so that the evil of child marriage could be tackled. Mohammad Ali Jinnah insisted on extending the protection of the proposed measure to Muslim girls, too. Many Muslim members of the assembly opposed him, but no member from any religious community challenged his right to have his say.

Recently, Ramesh Kumar Vankwani, a non-Muslim member of the ruling party, moved a bill to raise the marriage age for girls to 18 years. A Muslim minister not only disagreed with him, but also challenged his right to move the bill, implying thereby that Vankwani’s belief debarred him from raising a matter that could affect Muslim girls. Retrogressive thinking of this order has not been witnessed in our legislative history — neither before Independence, nor after it.

The Quaid-i-Azam spoke twice on marriage laws in the Central Assembly of India. In the first instance, he supported the Hindu Marriage Bill that allowed inter-caste marriages and declared: “I am as much interested in coming to the rescue of the Hindu minority … as anybody else would be interested in coming to the rescue of a Musalman minority, if it was suffering.”

It is worth recalling Quaid-i-Azam’s position on the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 once more.

The second occasion was his intervention in the debate on the bill that sought to prevent child marriage in the Hindu community.

The Quaid’s success in making the Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 applicable to Muslim girls, too, has been frequently referred to in public debate, but it is worth recalling once more.

A large number of ulema opposed the Quaid’s initiative, while Maulana Shibli Nomani alone was conspicuous in supporting him. When he was asked to resign his seat in the assembly, he declared that only the Bombay Muslims who had elected him had the right to recall him.

During the debate on the Sarda Bill, as it was named after the mover, he made the following points:

— Child marriage was a social evil and he was horrified to learn of its prevalence among Muslims.

— He had learnt during 30 years of his law practice that marriage was a civil contract pure and simple, and that it had nothing to do with religion.

— There was no Islamic text that obliged Mus­lims to marry off their daughters before they reached the age of 14.

Since the bill was opposed by the orthodox Hindus as well, the fact that its supporters included Hindu and Muslim members of the assembly was welcomed by the Quaid as a sign of unity that was needed to win freedom from alien rule.

However, in today’s Pakistan, the authorities appear determined to make the Quaid more and more irrelevant. The efforts made by Ziaul Haq to downgrade his status in the national pantheon have not been reversed by any of the regimes that have succeeded him. But the case for raising a bar to child marriage can be argued without upsetting anyone by recalling the Quaid’s views.

The whole world has become aware of the evil that child marriage is. Pakistan is among the worst-affected countries. According to a media report, 21 per cent of the girls are married before the age of 18 and 3pc before the age of 15. The havoc this evil practice causes in societies that allow it is no secret.

A child bride is often a victim of marital rape. She is made to assume reproductive functions before she can properly understand them. She becomes a mother before she can learn to discharge the responsibilities of motherhood. Frequent child births lead to a high rate of maternal deaths and the birth of babies who are too weak to survive, as noticed in Thar, for example. Thus, on the one hand, child marriages cause wastage and loss of women’s lives; and on the other, they result in a high rate of infant mortality and raising of underdeveloped children. Both damage on a scale that no country can afford.

Many countries have improved the standards of living of women and children and also improved their rate of economic progress by enabling families to raise the girls’ marriage age. The example closest to us is Bangladesh’s. A number of Muslim states including Turkey, Egypt, Bangladesh, and the United Arab Emirates have fixed 18 years or more as the minimum marriageable age for girls. How do Pakistani ulema view the interpretation of religious injunctions in these countries? Sindh raised the marriage age for girls to 18 quite some time ago. Aren’t the heavens still in place in the province?

Finally, fixing the girls’ minimum age for marriage is not a new ‘conspiracy’. The Child Marriage Restraint Act of 1929 has been in force throughout the 72 years of independence. The Muslim Family Laws Ordinance of 1961 had a provision about girls’ marriageable age for two decades, till it was arbitrarily removed by Gen Zia.

A silver lining is the decision of a few PTI leaders to deny support to their more reactionary wing. The ruling party does not have much time to avoid reaching a consensus on the issue. One should like to hope that they will be able to disabuse the minds of some of their misguided members. But if they continue to dither on this issue, they will deepen the impression that the present government is going to yield to the obscurantist elements to a greater extent than its predecessors. That is bound to entail indescribable difficulties and hardships to the country’s women and members of minority communities, in addition to strengthening the hands of an anachronistic orthodoxy.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-marriage-age-debate/feed/0Facilities for womenhttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/facilities-for-women/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/facilities-for-women/#respondWed, 15 May 2019 05:11:52 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87876It is time to set up public toilets for women across the country. As Sindh Minister for Women’s Development Shahla Raza has pointed out, there is an urgent need to raise the issue at all forums including assemblies so that measures can be taken to provide facilities for over 50 percent of the population in the country. The lack of public toilets in bazaars and other places essentially creates serious problems for women and it is not uncommon to come across female field workers, media professionals and others knocking at the doors of people’s homes to ask for the use of a restroom. This is both undignified and potentially unsafe.

The lack of toilets for women, even at educational institutions, has already been documented as one of the factors which forces girls out of secondary education. While 90 percent of girls across the world receive primary education, only 75 percent move on to education at the next tier. The highest dropout rates come in developing countries, with factors such as problems with dealing with menstrual hygiene in the absence of toilets one of their reasons for this. We need a campaign for toilets with proper sanitation facilities to be set up at all educational institutions and also other places. This should be a part of a wider drive to establish public toilets for all citizens. There is a shortage of facilities for men as well, with the use of the roadside still not uncommon even in major cities. This is both unhygienic and unpleasant. A change is needed, and the requirements of women need to be made a part of this change.

Organisations researching working conditions for women have pointed out that at a large number of factories and other places, there are simply no private areas for women to use for any purpose. This ties in with the wider problem of women being seen as virtually non-existent. It is time our government and organisations agitating for women’s rights took this on as a serious issue. Trivializing the very real needs of women is not advisable. It simply acts to further reduce their standing in society and holds back the efforts to ensure that they are recognized as equal citizens. Women after all are not a minority group. They make up at least one half of Pakistan’s population. They must therefore be catered for in all respects and providing facilities that they can use to meet basic needs, to breastfeed infants, and to make access to sanitary products easier for them should become a priority for everyone in the country.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/facilities-for-women/feed/0On women in sciencehttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/on-women-in-science/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/on-women-in-science/#respondTue, 23 Apr 2019 12:08:01 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87745Some weeks ago, humans made a marvellous scientific breakthrough—after ten years of research and hard work, scientists around the world working on a project called the Event Horizon Telescope combined telescopes on sites across the world to create one enormous, powerful, super-synchronized telescope, and took a photograph of a black hole. It’s a stupendous accomplishment, involving a great deal of extremely complicated physics and computer science, that has captured an image of a beast of a black hole—it’s mass is 6.5 billion times that of the sun in our solar system, and is exactly what Einstein’s theory of relativity suggested, which was published more than a hundred years ago.

It’s an exciting time for space science. But what is even more exciting is the contribution of Dr Katie Bouman, an American MIT-trained scientist who, at twenty-nine, led one of the teams that wrote one of the algorithms for EHT to sort the data from all the site telescopes. An algorithm is essentially a set of rules a computer scientist or mathematician writes that gives instructions on how to solve complex problems; now that we have the machines for it, this is usually for computers now. Dr Bouman co-led a team that worked on an algorithm that enabled computers to know how to process five petabytes of data (half a ton of hard drives, it’s ridiculously unbelievable). What’s more interesting than that? Most of the reportage that initially covered this stupendous event didn’t mention Dr Bouman at all.

Readers of this column know that here the word ‘interesting’ usually means ‘extremely thought-provoking and grounds for raised eyebrow commentary’. If you guessed this, you would be correct. It’s not an accident that the women of the team weren’t mentioned. These days there’s a lot of push for girls to pursue STEM subjects—science, technology, engineering, mathematics—but what many don’t realize is that these fields are also incredibly sexist spaces that make it doubly difficult for women to stick to them. Dr Bauman was in a position of authority based on her competence and intelligence, and her team helped deliver an algorithm of a lifetime—and news reports didn’t include her, only the men leading the teams? Twitter was quick to point out the lapse, and soon Katie Bouman’s smiling face, posing with stacks of hard drives or eyes wide in front of her computer as the first images started coming together, flooded the internet.

Error rectified, one might think. Casual sexism—whoops, forgot to credit the female peers doing work just as important as yours—happened but now due credit has been given. It’s happened scores of times before, women being left out of the scientific narrative— heard of Margaret Hamilton? She coined the term “software engineering” and got a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work developing the on-board software for the Apollo spacecrafts. Her work got Neil Armstrong on the moon. The Apgar test, administered to newborns to check their initial health—developed by Virginia Apgar, an anaesthetologist. Marie Curie had to win two Nobel prizes for a spot in the roll-call of World’s Famous Scientists.

It’s important to highlight the contribution of women to science not only because theirs are significant in their own right, but also to combat the deeply sexist spaces of STEM. The need for this is clearer than ever, because after Dr Bouman’s contribution to the EHT team came to light, the internet’s sad halfwits came out in full cry against her. Of course she was part of a larger team, and her co-leading a team doesn’t mean she is taking credit for all the work the team or EHT did. But the Trolls thought it was extremely important to hack Dr Bouman’s e-mail, to suggest her work was stolen from a colleague and generally be as unpleasant as possible, because she is a woman. No troll has gone after any of the male scientists on the EHT team, because men don’t have to be taken down a peg, reminded that their place is always in the background. To weak, derisible people, anyone who is more visible, vocal and accomplished is a threat. If you’re an insecure man and a woman is those things? Unacceptable. It’s the reason why the Aurat March backlash continues in tiresome tirades about female behaviour, and the reason why women often give up jobs that expose them to constant low-grade sexist harassment. It is exhausting to work in a hostile environment for anyone, but add to that the latent danger of male hostility, and you have a situation that could turn serious at any point. A female colleague could be unfair, bossy and mean, but one wouldn’t be afraid of meeting her in a parking lot. There is an endless supply of hair-triggered male rage out in the world, all directed at some self-decided threat women perpetually pose to, but only to them. Trolls on the internet will happily Photoshop your head onto porn, publish your personal information online and threaten to rape, burn and acid-attack you in a heartbeat. Thousands of women experience these aggressions daily for no reason other than just being a female in the world. Being a successful woman? Katie Bouman knows.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/on-women-in-science/feed/0Women votershttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-voters-5/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-voters-5/#respondTue, 16 Apr 2019 09:40:04 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87707RECENTLY, the Election Commission of Pakistan released its district-wide data on the gap between female and male registered voters in the July 2018 elections. The ECP revealed there were 12.54m fewer registered women voters, although women constitute nearly 50pc of the total population of the country. The figures highlight an unfortunate decline in the political participation of women, as the gender gap between registered voters during the 2013 elections was smaller at 10.97m. The most prosperous province, Punjab, alone accounted for over 1m of the missing registration in 2018. Most surprisingly, Punjab’s capital, Lahore, led the gap with 616,945 fewer female voters. While the large number may be because the city has a bigger population than many other parts of the country, that is not a good enough excuse for the exclusion of so many women from the democratic exercise. This gender gap and the continued exclusion of women from the political process highlights structural inequalities that continue to act as barriers for the vast majority of Pakistani women, despite their prominent and vocal presence in politics and their efforts in pushing progressive legislation.

Ahead of the general elections, both the ECP and Nadra made considerable efforts in ensuring greater participation of women. Along with the poll network Fafen, Nadra updated its electoral list and helped women get their CNICs to have their votes registered. Meanwhile, thanks to the efforts of women legislators, the ECP declared the results of three constituencies null and void due to the low turnout of female voters last July. For the first time, the election monitoring body made it compulsory to have at least 10pc of votes in each constituency cast by women. Although still a relatively low percentage, it is important to have such measures in place in a society such as ours, where misogyny is deeply entrenched and where women’s voices are often ignored and dismissed.

Despite these efforts, much more needs to be done. All too often, so-called progressive parties have joined hands with conservatives to bar women from voting through ‘understandings’. In 2013, the PML-N entered into an agreement with the Jamaat-i-Islami to disallow women from casting their votes in Buner, while the PPP and ANP had entered into a similar agreement with the Jamaat in Lower Dir. Implicit in the marginalisation of women from public spaces and the decision-making processes or keeping them away from ‘serious’ and ‘worldly’ issues is the belief they do not belong in that world. And yet, they are affected by its decisions. Politics affects them as much as anyone else, it is important that they participate. Parliament needs to be more aggressive in pushing affirmative action and encouraging right-thinking legislators. Until society changes, and until women, men and transgendered people are truly equal in the eyes of the law and society, such measures should continue to be in place.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-voters-5/feed/0The ‘real’ women empowermenthttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-real-women-empowerment/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-real-women-empowerment/#respondWed, 03 Apr 2019 11:45:16 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87569Indian author Savi Sharma is right in saying, “Everyone has a story to tell. Everyone is a writer, some are written in the books and some are confined to hearts.”

These stories vary in nature as widely as the human DNA itself, thanks to the countless sets of circumstances, causes and consequences. But several groups can be formed of these stories based on who has authored them. One such group is of the tales narrated by women which, to boot, also have myriads of forms and dimensions and yet seem to be originating from a common source — lack of coordination and understanding between the two sexes.

This year’s month of March has transcribed the occurrence of three events that share the same limelight of importance.

A woman with a shaven head named Asma Aziz posted a video on social media a few days ago seeking help from public after the police reportedly denied her any. She claimed that her husband stripped her naked in front of his friends, shaved her hair off with their help and burned it — just because she had refused to dance in front of them. Her medical examination report revealed multiple bruises on her body. It is worth noting that Asma’s marriage with her husband-turned-perpetrator Mian Faisal was a result of love courtship.

Our society withholds any sort of help in such cases where a love marriage fails. The blame is put on the shoulders of the victim as this form of courtship is deemed highly inappropriate and dishonourable. Same is being observed in this particular case as well where Asma is being shamed and held liable for her ordeal.

But there is always a flipside to everything.

Hajra Bibi filed a complaint with Lahore police a few days back alleging that her husband and his brother tied her hands and lashed her with rubber belts and rods, causing multiple wounds on her back along with damaging her nose tissues and causing massive bleeding. She alleged that her in-laws’ greed surpassed humanity. She told how her parents had given them a heavy dowry at the time of her marriage some 10 years back. Be that as it may, they did not cease putting forth their demands and asked for more money from her parents.

This is a typical case of arranged marriage going wrong. Bride’s parents keep financing the groom’s side first in the form of dowry and later to satisfy their increasing demands in order to see their daughter ‘happy’. Yet she gets domestic abuse as her reward.

While both the accounts show that domestic abuse has nothing to do with whether the marriage is love or arranged, such stories represent only one dimension of the problem that is actually much bigger and more problematic than it seems.

The third afore-indicated event is the Aurat March that avowed to highlight the key issues being faced by women in our country.

The ultimate solution seems to be only one and that is based on a simple fact that one has the power to shape up either one’s own personality or that of one’s child. Bringing up boys under the shadows of male privilege is what women need to focus on as it is we, the women, who tend to make the men the way they are. A child’s brain is as pure and pristine as an unused paper; one can write on it whatever one wills. And this is exactly where we are repeatedly making mistakes. Today’s problematic men have been kept deprived of basic grooming and training by their mothers, a mistake that today’s and future mothers need to avoid if we wish to witness an actual change.

There won’t be a problem in re-heating food for your husband once he starts acknowledging it by aa simple ‘Thank you!”. And this is the gist — no one can teach men about women better than women themselves. What we see in today’s men is a reflection of their upbringing. Thus it is not the mirror but the reflection that has to be changed in order to transform the reality. And that transformed reality would be the ‘real’ women empowerment.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-real-women-empowerment/feed/0Women and politicshttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-and-politics/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-and-politics/#respondTue, 02 Apr 2019 11:02:12 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87514For Western countries, democracy, in certain times and places, might be a selective slogan to achieve strategic ends such as ‘regime change’ in some parts of the world.

We in Pakistan, however, really know the worth of having democracy in the country. It is something countless political activists, workers, progressive intellectuals, journalists, and many others in our history have strived for.

Women who are almost half of Pakistan’s population have a complex relationship with democracy. We explore women’s political participation by referring to some literature (Cheema et al 2019, Jinnah Institute 2019, Liaqat et al 2018) in this article.

In terms of women’s political participation, there are some positive developments and systemic challenges that still need attention. Low women voter turnout is an issue. Even urban women like me sometimes do not vote despite the lack of any obstacles. At the national level, there is a gender gap in terms of women voters’ turnout. Yet, this gap decreased and women voter turnout was 45.7 percent in 2018, having increased from 37.32 percent in 2013. Similarly, women voted less than 5 percent in at least 17 constituencies in 2013.

In 2018, there were no constituencies where women voter turnout was less than 5 percent and it was less than 10 percent only in three constituencies. According to the Elections Act 2017, the results of those constituencies have to be declared null and void where women voter turnout is less than 10 percent.

In terms of challenges, there is still a gap between men and women’s voter registration (roughly 12.2 million) in the electoral rolls of the country. This means that 12.2 million less women are registered as voters compared to men. In December 2016, there were total 97 million registered voters: 54.6 million men (56 percent) and 42.4 percent women. In other words, there are only 78 women registered voters for every 100 men. For the 2018 elections, 3.8 million more women were registered as voters, yet women are still 44 percent of almost 106 million registered voters.

Getting a CNIC is often difficult for women belonging to remote areas. Women might not be in position to meet the detailed documentation requirements needed to register for a CNIC and it might be compounded due to restrictions on their mobility.

Going beyond women voter registration, there are also issues of women turnout at the elections. In 2018 elections, only 45.7 percent women voted in the national and provincial elections and voter turnout for men was higher at 55 percent. This calls for a deeper look into the constraints underlying women’s political participation.

The gender gap exists even in urban areas where the gender educational gap has significantly narrowed down. In 1990, the educational attainment gender gap amongst young adults in urban areas was 10 percent, considered to be large. However, over the next 20 years, this gender gap in education has almost closed down. Yet, it did not have the desired positive impact on women’s political participation, even in urban areas. Generally, research shows that with education, voter turnout increases. However, it has not significantly impacted women’s political participation in the urban areas in Pakistan, something that needs further exploration.

In terms of constraints on women’s political participation, literature identifies patriarchy, women’s lack of political information, and general lack of interest in the political processes as major reasons. Empirical research by Cheema and others shows that while all the three above-mentioned constraints are prevalent and play a role, it is largely women’s disillusionment with the political process that is the “most compelling explanation” behind the low participation of women in the voting process.

Political parties target significantly less women than men. This lack of inclusion of women in political canvassing results in a ‘gendered psyche’ that might contribute to making women “invisible and irrelevant” to the political process and elections. In other words, women are not perceived as a “political constituency” by political parties, which then leads to their disengagement from the electoral process.

Research has shown that women have different preferences from men in terms of public goods, services and policy. It is particularly significant in terms of the public services that have an impact on women’s lives inside their homes. In other words, women might have preferred if political parties contact teams engaged them on their preferences of provision of public services.

If political party workers and politicians had greater interaction with women on the basis of their needs, it could lead to greater women voter turnout. Political parties are run by male party workers who generally engage men during the elections campaign. It is this exclusion from political contact rather than domestic constraints that often leads to demotivating women voters.

Voters in general prize connections to politicians to achieve patronage based delivery of goods and services. In this backdrop, political parties need to develop contacts with women. Working both with women and men can lead to an increase in women voter turnout. Women might be even more amenable to participate in processes that call for “accountability bargain” of the political representatives.

Therefore, increasing direct contact with women and working on establishing a stronger accountability relationship with political parties might be an effective way to stimulate their interest in the electoral process. This process of accountability is geared towards the provision of public goods and services to constituents by also keeping in mind the different preferences that women have.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/women-and-politics/feed/0Sindh and the state of gender equality in educationhttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/sindh-and-the-state-of-gender-equality-in-education/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/sindh-and-the-state-of-gender-equality-in-education/#respondThu, 28 Mar 2019 11:53:37 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87557The World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report (2018), which measures economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and empowerment, ranked Pakistan second-to-last globally and last regionally in South Asia.

Markers such as socioeconomic status, locality, and language have an impact on education outcomes, but gender most significantly impacts a student’s ability to perform well academically in Pakistan. Sindh province, in particular, illustrates this reality.

There was a time when Sindh province excelled, competing country’s number 1 province of Punjab in education outcomes. But OXFAM Pakistan’s recent report on a comparative analysis of gender responsive financing in Punjab and Sindh provinces (2016) revealed that gender parity has increased in Punjab by 3 per cent, whereas it has declined by the same percentage in Sindh. It also highlights that the majority of girls’ schools in Sindh do not have basic facilities like toilets, drinking water, or boundary walls.

Significantly, there are huge gender disparities in budget allocation for education in Sindh with only 19 per cent of its budget in 2016-17 earmarked for girls’ education, compared to 48 per cent of the budget for boys’ education. Gender responsive budgeting is also complicated by the opacity of major categories in the education budget, which are not disaggregated by gender.

Pakistan’s education statistics from 2016-17 also reveal alarming gender disparities in education in Sindh. Eight million students are enrolled in education institutions from primary to degree level in Sindh, of which just 42 per cent are girls.

However, approximately 6.4 million children are still out of school, the majority (53 per cent) of which are girls. Effective Transition Rate (ETR) between primary and lower secondary levels, which flags potential barriers in the education system, is also less than 80 per cent in Sindh, similar to Balochistan and FATA. Low Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) coupled with low ETR results in a worrying phenomenon: many school-aged students, particularly girls, do not receive an education after lower secondary level.

Another key issue is the low number of female-only education institutions in Sindh. From pre-primary to degree colleges, there are 55,247 public and private educational institutions. The majority (61%) are male-only institutions, 19 per cent are mixed, and only 21 per cent are female-only educational intuitions.

Institutions for girls in rural areas are mere 15 per cent of the total educational institutions in Sindh, illustrating the inequality in providing access to education, which directly and disproportionately affects women and girls living in rural areas of the province.

Further compounding the low prevalence of girls’ schools in Sindh is a critical lack of female teachers in public schools, particularly in rural areas.

Female teachers constitute only 32 per cent of public institutions’ teaching workforce, a figure much lower than national average (42 per cent), and even lower than Balochistan and FATA (33 per cent). In rural Sindh, 80 per cent of the teaching workforce is male. While normatively, institutions prefer to recruit women at the primary level, women only comprise 26 per cent of teachers at this level, where the levels of enrolment are generally highest.

At the district level, the Sindh government’s data shows that Tharparkar has the lowest number (14 per cent) of female teachers compared to (86 per cent) male teachers, whereas Sujawal, Kashmore and Ghotki districts also report lower numbers of female teachers (20 per cent) in their teaching work force. This absence of female teachers deters parents from sending their girls to school past a certain age, thus significantly limiting their educational future.

Moreover, simply increasing access to education does not ensure quality. Thus, reform initiatives should address the gender biases in education textbooks. The government needs to prioritise and institutionalise revising textbooks and associated curricula through comprehensive gender review and analysis as regular practise.

In order to effectively address the glaring inequalities in the Sindh education system, women’s representation also needs to be equitable and responsive. Unfortunately, women’s representation in leadership positions and policy-making roles is also insignificant. Approximately 80 per cent of major educational institutions, such as STEDA, PITE, RSU, DCAR and Education Directorates, are mainly headed and dominated by men. Women lack any substantive representation in policy forums.

One recent success has been the establishment of a Gender Unit within the Sindh Education Department, a major hallmark which can promote gender-inclusive policy-making and ensure implementation of gender gap-closing agendas. The Gender Unit also engages with a working group tasked with advising and supporting the government on achieving gender parity in education.

However, the Gender Unit is not currently fully functional and still faces problems with a lack of required resources and capacity, which is indicative of the government’s commitment to gender equality in education at the strategic level. The Sindh Gender Unit — if fully funded, staffed and institutionalised — has the potential to model gender-equitable education across Pakistan and slowly regain its former position as a leader in delivering quality education systems.

Despite these setbacks, it is encouraging to observe that girls’ enrolment, while still comparatively low, is increasing in Sindh. However, given the gross enrolment ratio and transition rate, lack of girls’ schools, and dearth of female teachers, Sindh needs to make drastic and concerted efforts to respond to the gender gaps in its education system.

Education of girls, and subsequently that of women, will not improve without deliberate efforts, which are currently missing, notably in allocation of resources and implementation. Improving gender parity in education, with a focus on girls’ education, should be the first priority of the Sindh Education Department.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/sindh-and-the-state-of-gender-equality-in-education/feed/0The challenge of women-centred changehttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-challenge-of-women-centred-change/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-challenge-of-women-centred-change/#respondWed, 20 Mar 2019 11:10:20 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87431Is making oneself heard as a woman challenging? It certainly is! Is that an obstacle though? Certainly not! It is an opportunity to say the least, a chance to voice what keeps you back and to help that change with time.

The prestige of being at the World Economic Forum was an experience I had aspired to have at some point in my life and to have it this young and at the prime of my career, I feel privileged beyond measure. Several Pakistanis especially iconic women from my country have been part of this previously, women I look up to as leaders in their fields.

The YGL puts me in a spotlight I have taken very seriously. It is a tremendous responsibility in setting forth my goals as a leader and hereafter taking steps that consolidate the networking opportunities and learning opportunities to platforms in Pakistan. The World Economic Forum indeed achieved what it promised every attendee:

“Open your world”

My world certainly opened to different kinds of food, sharing a taxi, sharing cocktails and music, meeting people I had never imagined I would. Indeed I even met Karan Johar, whose movies we grew up watching, and I had the chance for my fan moment and shared it with millions of Pakistanis.

The environment the World Economic Forum provided was meticulous in every sense: from the service to the attendees to the absolute paradise which was Davos in its sheets of white snow. My world opened here to seeing people making huge strides in my own country such as Shermeen Obaid Chinoy, Abid and Maheen, women leaders on the other side of our border such as Kanika, interacting with YGLs from Bangladesh and not to forget sitting across the table from the President of Switzerland.

It had been exhilarating what had been packed into three intense days on topics that shape us today and require our utmost attention as the chosen global leaders, and also the unceasing and unfaltering entertainment which brought me to talk to leaders for collective goals, such as those of climate change, conserving water and refugees. Among these too lie Pakistan’s goals of health and education for us which, I with my friends and colleagues from around the world seek to work on in cooperation with Pakistani organisations to fulfil them.

Every day is not a successful one, as much as people would expect that from a Member of Parliament in Pakistan, but spirits still remain high and every day goes by being the leader my fellow citizens and I want of me. Without taking a bold course of action and standing for something special, very little or no change comes about and what I want to see is a sustainable change in the lives of people of Pakistan- that population which lives on basic sustenance or scrape by their day. These people include women whose lives are dedicated to their families but are disregarded in the workforce and the country’s informal economy and are treated with violence and abuse. It took a long series of efforts, to bring in the sense of realisation in the provincial assembly of the gravity of the situation of women especially those who are working as informal labour.

In Pakistan, we strive to cover the remarkable aspect of empowering women without crumbling the family structure, in balancing the male-female relationship and renegotiating it, while giving respect to women. The landmark domestic workers bill was eventually passed after tremendous advocacy, lobbying with fellow members of parliament especially the male groups who thought it was unnecessary to put a cap of regulations in ensuring women domestic workers get their rights.

Similarly, the bill against hate speech has been another milestone, which directly promotes peace and builds a culture and environment of trust among the different communities living in the country, where the rights and freedom of all religions and ethnicities are respected and regarded.

These actions are directed to restoring human rights and dignity for all Pakistani’s ensuring equal citizenship and access to justice. This means that as leaders and representatives of the people, we recognise the universal human rights covenants and give our citizens the same respect as of that in the rest of the world. As a young leader I feel, though this is a challenging task, actions like these are about taking the leap and working endlessly for the values one believes in. Only then can true peace and resilience be brought about.

In isolation, very little is achieved, and through partnership and networking, a lot can be changed, for the better. While we host the third largest population of refugees in work, the efforts taken for this group of people at 1.4 million individuals is done in isolation, governments, civil society and refugee communities themselves need dire policy level support as well as direct interventions. Though the present government has announced some commitments in this regard, I seek to be engaged in this policy level matter in aligning the priorities of governments and the basic human rights of refugees which otherwise hinders the mobility and security of their families.

Words might not do justice to the platform that is the World Economic Forum, but it sure does give the world a holistic agenda, a table for discussion and above all a strong resolve and commitment from passionate and eager leaders from around the world, and I have been honoured to play my part.

]]>https://www.pakistangendernews.org/the-challenge-of-women-centred-change/feed/0Well-behaved womenhttps://www.pakistangendernews.org/well-behaved-women/
https://www.pakistangendernews.org/well-behaved-women/#respondWed, 20 Mar 2019 11:01:26 +0000https://www.pakistangendernews.org/?p=87422Feminism is still a taboo in Pakistan. Anyone who claims to relate with the ideals of feminism is met with ridicule or worse, suspicion. The overwhelmingly negative response to the recently held ‘Aurat March’ in various parts of the country provides meaningful insight into the prevalent mindset in a section of our society.

A clear majority of our educated middle-class believes that Feminism and related domains like Gender Studies are confined to women and their issues only. That the world view taught in these fields is through the prism of a specific gender only, and their main agenda is to impose on the rest of us a self-conceived notion of women power.

This lack of understanding or fear of the unknown provides a very fertile ground to those who wish to propagate further misgivings about reforming our society. Such realities do not correlate with the aspirations of a country that wishes to break into the developed world sooner rather than later.

The rights of women and their issues are not a recent trend dating a few years or even a single century. The Seneca Falls Convention of 1848 in New York is considered as the first convention to discuss the social, civil and religious conditions and rights of women. Similarly, Islam has also laid forth a comprehensive list of the rights but we in our zeal fail to highlight the gap we have between the written text and implementation.

Therefore, campaigns like the ‘Aurat March’ are bound to happen.

The march raised eyebrows because it broke the stereotype around the middle-class urban woman in Pakistan. The educated, working woman dressed in her best is not expected to break from her traditional image of a contributing but docile member of society and venture into the unpredictable world of activism.

Admittedly, some placards were a bit controversial and as a result, the debate in the aftermath of the march has shifted from the actual issues faced by women to one of propriety and acceptable decorum. But imagine if this march was not held the way it was. Instead of being loud and bold, it was restricted within the safe zone of social norms. Would the same debate about the role of women in society and how they have been treated in the past been generated?

Meek women make for weak men. It is not possible that the human which gives birth be insecure, out of depth outside her walled world and molds her aspirations according to the social expectations, but her offspring be fit enough to change the world by taking on its biggest problems.

In fact, I will go out on a limb and state that even in Pakistani men there is a glaring omission of personality development which is obvious especially when working abroad. Of course, the caveat in this is that this is just my observation and in no way a generalisation of every Pakistani man.

Remember when Mukhtara Mai happened or when Malala happened? In the aftermath of those tragedies, the rest of the world had a condescending attitude towards us. We hated how someone else hijacked our cause of protecting our women and built their own narrative on how we fail to protect and promote our women. Instead of soul searching and course correction, some of us started pedaling the narrative that these victims had betrayed the country and in the process had become a tool in the hands of enemies. This is how we chose to tackle our cognitive dissonance.

There is every probability of such events happening again because we have learnt no lessons.

Yes, there is a greater realisation compared with before that things need to change but on ground the present looks a lot like the past and the future a lot like our present. We cannot control how the world perceives us, but we can certainly fix what is in our hands.